Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Postfach 100131, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany.
School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Faculty of Science, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, L3 3AF, UK.
Nat Commun. 2018 Nov 16;9(1):4836. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06695-z.
A central paradigm in conservation biology is that population bottlenecks reduce genetic diversity and population viability. In an era of biodiversity loss and climate change, understanding the determinants and consequences of bottlenecks is therefore an important challenge. However, as most studies focus on single species, the multitude of potential drivers and the consequences of bottlenecks remain elusive. Here, we combined genetic data from over 11,000 individuals of 30 pinniped species with demographic, ecological and life history data to evaluate the consequences of commercial exploitation by 18th and 19th century sealers. We show that around one third of these species exhibit strong signatures of recent population declines. Bottleneck strength is associated with breeding habitat and mating system variation, and together with global abundance explains much of the variation in genetic diversity across species. Overall, bottleneck intensity is unrelated to IUCN status, although the three most heavily bottlenecked species are endangered. Our study reveals an unforeseen interplay between human exploitation, animal biology, demographic declines and genetic diversity.
保护生物学的一个核心范式是，种群瓶颈会降低遗传多样性和种群生存力。在生物多样性丧失和气候变化的时代，因此了解瓶颈的决定因素和后果是一个重要的挑战。然而，由于大多数研究都集中在单一物种上，瓶颈的众多潜在驱动因素及其后果仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们结合了来自 30 种鳍足类动物的 11000 多个个体的遗传数据，以及人口统计学、生态学和生活史数据，以评估 18 世纪和 19 世纪海豹捕猎者的商业开发对这些物种的影响。我们发现，这些物种中约有三分之一表现出近期种群数量下降的明显特征。瓶颈的强度与繁殖栖息地和交配系统的变化有关，与全球丰度一起，解释了物种间遗传多样性变化的大部分原因。总体而言，瓶颈强度与 IUCN 地位无关，尽管受瓶颈影响最严重的三个物种是濒危物种。我们的研究揭示了人类开发、动物生物学、人口减少和遗传多样性之间意想不到的相互作用。
